Did I make a discovery?

Hello everyone this is my first post. Been gardening on and off for fifteen yrs or so. I started out by reading Ed Rosenthal and many other books. I've never needed to post because the "search" works so well.

Here's the story I have a small chamber for flowering that always runs 12/12 it has a 90w led UFO surrounded by 12x 26w CFLs. Recently the plants that that were going in were looking a little sad so I decided they needed a bit more vegging. I didn't want much change in electric usage so I left the CFLs on 12/12 but only put 8x 6500k in. Then just plugged the UFO in so it would be on for 24/7.

Guess what? Flowers!! How is this possible? I remember reading in one of those books that a clock display in the same room was enough light to keep them from flowering.

Anyone have any experience with this? For now I put back all 12) 2700k CFLs back in but left the UFO on 24hr/day. Would this mean a higher yield because photosynthesis is always going on? Or maybe hurt density of the flowers.

Any thoughts guys?

led ufo- what is this? What light spectrum does it put out?

It could be tricking the plants and they think that the UFO for the 12hrs that should be darkness is the moon. Not so much a discovery....

I dunno I've heard that clock thing too, but don't believe it. If that were true then the light on my power strip would have done that. Your havest will be fine. But you already know that...

UFO is a circular led light, it a as red and blue leds. Didn't think about moon light but I always wondered why the plants under street lights flowered. I just thought they were types of plants that didn't go by photo periods. Right, I'm not worried my harvest but how this will effect grams/watt. I assume a plant can't veg and flower at the same time leaving me with long lose flowers.

There were definitely times in a recent grow where light probably slipped into the room during 12/12, but they flowered up nicely and produced some quality medicine in the end. I was concerned during the grow that they might hermie, but everything turned out well. Was using an LED as well (240w) and was very pleased by how crystallized the herb ended up.

I dont believe the clock thing. One time I thought my clippings were getting too much light, so i moved my cloner to a corner of the box that got some shade from the mother. Instead of growing roots, they started flowering. Moved them back and they grew roots, stopped flowering and grew new leaves
I dont think they need complete darkness to induce flowering, just 12 hours of much less light.

Mike@420 said:

I dont believe the clock thing. One time I thought my clippings were getting too much light, so i moved my cloner to a corner of the box that got some shade from the mother. Instead of growing roots, they started flowering. Moved them back and they grew roots, stopped flowering and grew new leaves
I dont think they need complete darkness to induce flowering, just 12 hours of much less light.

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much less, and i would add consistent (sp....).... steady amt of light in the dark period, and much less.... just my opinion.

Could you be growing an autoflower strain? cn

Moonlight gets a whole lot brighter than an alarm clock and it doesn't flip the plants until they are ready. You hear sooooooooooo much nonsense on the internet.

potpimp said:

Moonlight gets a whole lot brighter than an alarm clock and it doesn't flip the plants until they are ready. You hear sooooooooooo much nonsense on the internet.

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Jackpot.

I can tell you from first hand experience that even minute-long exposure to normal room light will NOT cause a flowering plant to go back to veg, especially once its been established into flowering for a while.

This idea that plants need "total darkness" to flower is BS. NO PLANT gets total darkness in nature.

What probably happened here is just that the UFO light in question sucks and isn't adding much. In practice this plant was getting most/all of its necessary light from the CFLs and when they went 12/12 it decided to flower.

8-26 watt CFLS actually put out over 200 watts. . .that's quite a bit of light for a small chamber, let alone 12 of them!

Anyone have any experience with this? For now I put back all 12) 2700k CFLs back in but left the UFO on 24hr/day. Would this mean a higher yield because photosynthesis is always going on? Or maybe hurt density of the flowers.

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That's a good question.
Not knowing what frequencies the UFO is turning out, its pretty hard to say.
My guess is that if the UFO isn't enough to make the plant stop flowering, its also probably not adding all that much in terms of useful energy to the plant.
Flowering plants probably can benefit from a "rest" period.
So assuming that flowering is what you want now, personally, I would either leave the UFO on 12-12 just like the other lights, or shut it off entirely.

Actually, the UFO probably beats the shit out of the CFL's. I've grown with LED's, just the cheap ones, and they are awesome for vegging - not so for flowering. But I've seen some crazy shit from CFL's too. Yeah, the total darkness is BS.

Thanks everyone for the fast replies.

These are from clones and I've had many successful grows with each and not automatics. I wonder how much light in dark period is too much?

Say you had a 1000w hps on 24yr and a 250w on 12/12 would it flower? Probably not, but I've gone through great pains and cost to make sure everything is light proof. Not to mention the problems in cooling a sealed box. I use a green led flashlight if I need to go there in dark.

The thought of having crappy leds crossed my mind. But I've the UFO by itself for vegging with great results short, fat and bushy

I wonder if I had them in my game room (no windows) not inside any cabinet or anything but with a light on above them on 12/12. I'm in and out of the room all the time and I also watch TV in there. Would it flower? This could really simplify future builds.

I know its excessive but its 1x 90w UFO, 8x 26w 2700k CFLs, and 4x 27w 10.0 UV CFLs. So over 400w in a cabinet that's floor space is 18"x18" and 30" tall. Needless to say making it light proof and keeping things >80° was quite a chore. I do 4 plants in 9" square pots and use low stress training for a perfect canopy no more than 3" from the lights. I know I can yield more but my only concerned with quality and not quantity. But I've got 2.5oz off a 8" tall plant

potpimp said:

Moonlight gets a whole lot brighter than an alarm clock and it doesn't flip the plants until they are ready. You hear sooooooooooo much nonsense on the internet.

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The reason moonlight will not effect plants is because it is so diffuse. It's light rays are hardly rays in that they are so broken up, so spread out and not at all concentrated. Plants will react different to light that appears dimmer than moonlight appears to the eye if that light is concentrated/direct rather than highly diffuse.

Hahaha we have the same size cab well im 17 1/2x18x33 Got any pics buddy? I wanna see I run some CFL and 150w hps this time around i out grew the box tho hahahaha whoops...Get up a grow journal or start a thread i would sub up for sure buddy.

SlimJim503

I started with a reptile cage. It was black PVC piping covered with mesh. I lined the inside with Panda film got a 1/4" piece of Plexiglas from the depot that they cut 19“x19“ for me. Mounted the UFO in the center and drilled holes for the fans. Four smaller holes on each side that the bulb's threads go through and the soket also from the depot is on the other side. So they screw together sandwiching the Plexiglas tight. Linked all the bulbs together with some wire. Before I mounted everything I painted one side of the clear Plexiglas white and then again in black on the same side. Now the other sided looks like a white mirror with white bulbs and a white UFO and white panda film and white pots and I cover the dirt with a layer of diatomaceous earth also white. Get the idea? The only other color than white inside the cabinet is green

I'm nervous to post pics or spend much time talking online about my hobbies. My lawyer told me "If your going to do something illegal don't be stupid enough to take pictures of it" . Information that would have been useful YESTERDAY!